It’s been years in the making and is likely to be a while longer in coming to fruition, but Bethany Beach Town Council members on Friday, May 16, voted to approve a final concept for the so-called Streetscape revamp of Garfield Parkway, the entranceway to the town.
The concept they approved on a 7-0 vote last Friday bears little resemblance to some of the more ambitious versions presented during the last three years. There are no major changes to how traffic flows or where parking is placed. There are no elaborate pedestrian plazas or one-way streets
Instead, the council opted for a scaled-back plan, reflecting a more conservative financial trend throughout the area as the real estate sector has remained slow. The major change with the new Streetscape will be the removal of utility poles in the 100 block of Garfield Parkway, with lines being removed to the nearby alleyways or buried.
That block will also see a total street reconstruction, with new paving, sidewalks and parking areas, and the loss of the existing bicycle lane.
That non-standard, 4-foot-wide bike lane was sacrificed along the 100 block in the new plan to provide 2 additional feet to the interior lanes of the street — those nearest the median — without the loss of parallel parking on the exterior edges of the streets.
Currently the interior lanes run about 11 feet in width, some 2 feet short of the engineering standard to provide safe egress for those parking in the angled parking areas along the median. The new interior lanes on the 100 block of Garfield Parkway will now run 13 feet in width, with the outer lanes being 11 feet wide. About a foot of width will be added to the sidewalks in that block as a result of eliminating the bike lane, which was too narrow to be striped or otherwise marked, according to state law.
The bicycle lane in the 200 block of Garfield Parkway will remain, providing a transition for cyclists coming off of and across Route 1 into the downtown area. While it will end its eastward run at the 100 block of Garfield, lanes will take cyclists to the north and south on Pennsylvania Avenue.
The angled parking in both the 100 and 200 blocks will also be slightly reconfigured in the Streetscape plan, creating a more standard size and angle of parking space from the current layout, in which many of the spaces vary slightly.
With the loss of the bike lane in the 100 block, the town not only does not lose any parking spaces it actually comes up with one additional space overall. Council members in recent discussions of the Streetscape project weighed the call for a bicycle lane to remain against concerns about any loss of parking. With the requirement for the 13-foot interior lanes near the angled parking for safety’s sake, it had to be one or the other.
The approved plan favors the parking, though the bike lane’s presence in the 200 block was deemed necessary also for safety’s sake, since it will help lead cyclists from the highway into downtown.
Next steps, timetable laid out
With last Friday’s approval of a Streetscape plan comes the possibility of finally moving forward with the work, and possibly obtaining funding for the project. The town had been locked in a catch-22 proposition on the project, not knowing whether it could afford to make some of the more sweeping changes it proposed without having an idea of whether state transportation funds and other grants might help pay for the work. Any ideas about grants and other funding were tied to final approval of a plan, which the council moved to give May 16, to break the stalemate.
The plan will now head back to consulting engineers at JMT Engineering, who will aim to get a final construction cost for the project. It will then be presented to state transportation officials, with the idea that the state will coordinate at least some of the plan as part of overdue repaving work for Garfield Parkway. The state owns and maintains the roadway, while it owns and has Bethany Beach maintain the sidewalks. The town owns and maintains the interior of the median.
The reconstruction of the roadway, as proposed, would call into play Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements for the reworking of the sidewalks under DelDOT’s purview. That major expense has given the council qualms about the town’s ability to finance the project on its own, since it has already been told that it will have to pay for the relocation of the utility poles without state assistance. Engineers from JMT Engineering assured the town that the state is now well aware that it must pay for the ADA upgrades when its streets are upgraded. The town would be able to ask DelDOT for funding for the sidewalk improvements as part of the work.
The town will then have to work out its own funding needs, looking at the major costs of relocating the utilities from the 100 block, estimated at as much as a half-million dollars. Along the way, a pedestrian, bicycle and landscape plan will have to be worked out. The full cost of the project has been ballparked in the neighborhood of $4 million, but final costs for the town should be considerably lower with state funding and possible grants.
The timetable on the construction of the project would start with the utility relocation, which would have to be done prior to any other work. Engineers said they expect the major construction work could take place over the course of the usual off-season, between September and May, though exactly which September will be dependent on approvals, funding and budget cycles.
The council’s May 16 vote did, however, finally move the project out of the starting blocks.
Council adopts contracts, ordinances
Also on May 16, council members unanimously adopted Sept. 6 as the town’s next election day, setting Wednesday, Sept. 17, as the date for the subsequent council reorganizational meeting.
The council also unanimously approved a charter amendment that increases the town’s maximum fine to $1,500. They sidestepped a potential problem in agreeing to reduce a recently increased fine for illegally landing a plane in the town from the $2,500 mark to the $1,500 cap.
Also approved last Friday was a contract for $20,000 for the town’s annual Fourth of July fireworks display, which is expected to be shot from the town beach this year, now that it has been widened by reconstruction and despite recent damage to the dune from this month’s nor’easter. Town Manager Cliff Graviet said the only difference the storm might make was between 4-inch and 5-inch shells that might be used for the show.
The council also approved a nearly $20,000 contract for work to smooth over the beach entranceways at Ashwood, Maplewood and Oakwood streets, where there is currently a sizeable dip between the street end and beach crossover.
Council members also formalized their agreement to the details behind a 10-year contract with the Bethany Beach Volunteer Fire Company to provide ambulance service for the town and its coastal neighbors.
Finally, council members voted unanimously to adopt a revised version of an ordinance establishing requirements for open fires in the town. The ordinance governs where chimneas, fire pits and barbecue grills can be used, as well as other safety elements.